Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) has permanently banned U.S. President Donald Trump from its platform.
The social media company took the unusual step over the weekend of banning Trump’s personal account for breaking its rules against glorifying violence.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said in a blog post.
San Francisco-based Twitter announced the ban two days after Trump was initially suspended for posting a series of Tweets that misled users about the presidential election results and appeared to encourage violent rioters who had mobbed the U.S. Capitol. One included a video message of Trump expressing love for the insurgents and calling the election “fraudulent.”
Twitter had demanded that Trump delete three offending tweets and warned that he could be permanently blocked for subsequent rules violations. His account, which had more than 88 million followers, was restored Thursday. Trump’s posts on Friday included a tweet saying he wouldn’t attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration — and Twitter determined the tweets violated the company’s policies when “read in the context of broader events in the country.”
“Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the U.S. Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021,” Twitter said.
Trump’s suspension ends what has been the most controversial relationship Twitter has ever had with one of its users. Trump often used his account to verbally attack opponents and spread misinformation in ways that broke the social network’s rules. In some cases, Twitter created new rules specifically to accommodate the president’s reckless tweeting, including a special policy for world leaders, which put their rule-breaking tweets behind a filter instead of removing them entirely.
However, Twitter had begun to take a tougher stance on Trump’s tweets in recent months, especially on posts about Black Lives Matter protests and unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
After Trump’s temporary suspension last week, critics and civil rights advocates voiced concern that Twitter hadn’t gone far enough. That group included many Twitter employees, who delivered a letter to Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey Friday demanding the service remove Trump entirely.
Following the ban on @realDonaldTrump, Trump sent a tweet late Friday from the separate account @POTUS, which belongs to the office of the president and has 33 million followers.
“As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me,” read the post.